LJ Idol Seaosn 9 Week 5 - Honey Bees and Fantasies
o/` "Grainy days and city ways make me want to hide
someplace cool and green and shady.
"Find yourself a piece of grassy ground,
Lay down close your eyes.
Find yourself and maybe lose yourself
While your free spirit flies."
-- "Cool an' Green an' Shady" performed by John Denver
For some reason my friends don't like it when I visit. They take one look at me --- floppy sunbonnet; state-of-the-art binoculars; tattered and stained sketchbook; and disreputable, frayed Audobon Society guide in hand --- motoring up the driveway and realize that it's just a few seconds too late to draw the blinds and pretend no one is home.
I'm an avid bird watcher and I can guarantee that you, wherever you happen to live, will have at least one avian species in the area which I have not yet monitored. Naturally, I'm just dying to see it.
Conversely, I consider the Florida specialties which can be viewed up close and personal right on my property an excellent selling point for coming out here to FoxHeart Acres to visit. Forget Disney World! We have Florida scrub jay, ruby crowned kinglets, three kinds of sparrow, two kinds of wren, catbirds, owls... and even a Lord God bird or two if you're quick and quiet enough to observe the elusive pair. I suspect those friends end up visiting for the undisturbed quiet and the chance to be far away from the city, but the birds are part of the package nonetheless.
The feeders and their contents have been carefully chosen, after much research, for their ability to attract these birds. The large square feeder holds a blend which doves, cardinals, jays, crows, catbirds, and other large perching birds enjoy. The tube feeder, hanging in a young oak right outside my living room window, attracts smaller birds with a thistle and millet mix. Several species of finch which we don't normally see showed up and stayed in huge flocks. Did I mention we're on the major migratory bird routes?
Last week, the first hummingbird came to sample the petunias in the yard. As they're not particularly good for nectar and none of my plants which attract hummingbirds are blooming yet, we hung the feeder. Dorie doesn't buy pre-made mix nor do we dye it. Instead, we use the time honored recipe my grandmother used and which most of the birding sites recommend: 1 part sugar to 4 parts water, if you're interested. It's the scent and taste which attract them, not the color. They seem perfectly able to find our feeder and only the bottom is copper with enamel flowers.
The woodpeckers and wrens, it turns out, either cannot or will not perch on the standard feeders (although one incredibly persistent red bellied woodpecker has learned to hang upside down off the large feeder and scoop seeds that way). For these, we placed suet cakes on the sides of the trees where they spend most of their time. The suet has a mixture of dried fruits, nuts, and seeds beneficial to these active creatures.
The suet cakes might have been a mistake. Until then, we'd been lucky enough to be left alone by the squirrels. I lost count of just how many we initially had but they made short work of all that expensive bird feed. About the only thing they didn't manage was to break either feeder; after a Cooper's hawk destroyed the last one, I had insisted on the more expensive and thus more durable kind.
Since the dawn of time, birders have been fighting a losing battle against these cunning, ravenous rodents. Like everyone else, I didn't particularly want to hurt them but I didn't want them in the feeders either. Of course the 'net has all the answers. Some were too ridiculous to even consider (super glue, really?!) but making the feeders an unattractive climb seemed feasible. Unfortunately, WD-40 only works as long as there's no rain.
Maybe if I gave them their own feeding station....
No, they refused to go anywhere near it. Apparently it just wasn't as much of a challenge as climbing a greased pole or hanging upside down nibbling on a suet block (after which they would casually discard the empty cage like a fast food wrapper).
Hot sauce! Birds lack the receptors to perceive the burn of hot peppers, unlike mammals. Too bad I didn't remember that this trick was supposed to work on barking dogs too and I have at least one who drinks the damned stuff and begs for more.
Alas, I was down to one option and one option only. We started with ten squirrels. Six are now in my freezer. On Beltane we'll roast them much as one would a rabbit and let the fat from the rich meat baste the last of the winter vegetables. It might sound odd, but cracker recipes for roast squirrel do still exist and the general rule of homestead has always been "if you shoot it, you're eating it".
someplace cool and green and shady.
"Find yourself a piece of grassy ground,
Lay down close your eyes.
Find yourself and maybe lose yourself
While your free spirit flies."
-- "Cool an' Green an' Shady" performed by John Denver
For some reason my friends don't like it when I visit. They take one look at me --- floppy sunbonnet; state-of-the-art binoculars; tattered and stained sketchbook; and disreputable, frayed Audobon Society guide in hand --- motoring up the driveway and realize that it's just a few seconds too late to draw the blinds and pretend no one is home.
I'm an avid bird watcher and I can guarantee that you, wherever you happen to live, will have at least one avian species in the area which I have not yet monitored. Naturally, I'm just dying to see it.
Conversely, I consider the Florida specialties which can be viewed up close and personal right on my property an excellent selling point for coming out here to FoxHeart Acres to visit. Forget Disney World! We have Florida scrub jay, ruby crowned kinglets, three kinds of sparrow, two kinds of wren, catbirds, owls... and even a Lord God bird or two if you're quick and quiet enough to observe the elusive pair. I suspect those friends end up visiting for the undisturbed quiet and the chance to be far away from the city, but the birds are part of the package nonetheless.
The feeders and their contents have been carefully chosen, after much research, for their ability to attract these birds. The large square feeder holds a blend which doves, cardinals, jays, crows, catbirds, and other large perching birds enjoy. The tube feeder, hanging in a young oak right outside my living room window, attracts smaller birds with a thistle and millet mix. Several species of finch which we don't normally see showed up and stayed in huge flocks. Did I mention we're on the major migratory bird routes?
Last week, the first hummingbird came to sample the petunias in the yard. As they're not particularly good for nectar and none of my plants which attract hummingbirds are blooming yet, we hung the feeder. Dorie doesn't buy pre-made mix nor do we dye it. Instead, we use the time honored recipe my grandmother used and which most of the birding sites recommend: 1 part sugar to 4 parts water, if you're interested. It's the scent and taste which attract them, not the color. They seem perfectly able to find our feeder and only the bottom is copper with enamel flowers.
The woodpeckers and wrens, it turns out, either cannot or will not perch on the standard feeders (although one incredibly persistent red bellied woodpecker has learned to hang upside down off the large feeder and scoop seeds that way). For these, we placed suet cakes on the sides of the trees where they spend most of their time. The suet has a mixture of dried fruits, nuts, and seeds beneficial to these active creatures.
The suet cakes might have been a mistake. Until then, we'd been lucky enough to be left alone by the squirrels. I lost count of just how many we initially had but they made short work of all that expensive bird feed. About the only thing they didn't manage was to break either feeder; after a Cooper's hawk destroyed the last one, I had insisted on the more expensive and thus more durable kind.
Since the dawn of time, birders have been fighting a losing battle against these cunning, ravenous rodents. Like everyone else, I didn't particularly want to hurt them but I didn't want them in the feeders either. Of course the 'net has all the answers. Some were too ridiculous to even consider (super glue, really?!) but making the feeders an unattractive climb seemed feasible. Unfortunately, WD-40 only works as long as there's no rain.
Maybe if I gave them their own feeding station....
No, they refused to go anywhere near it. Apparently it just wasn't as much of a challenge as climbing a greased pole or hanging upside down nibbling on a suet block (after which they would casually discard the empty cage like a fast food wrapper).
Hot sauce! Birds lack the receptors to perceive the burn of hot peppers, unlike mammals. Too bad I didn't remember that this trick was supposed to work on barking dogs too and I have at least one who drinks the damned stuff and begs for more.
Alas, I was down to one option and one option only. We started with ten squirrels. Six are now in my freezer. On Beltane we'll roast them much as one would a rabbit and let the fat from the rich meat baste the last of the winter vegetables. It might sound odd, but cracker recipes for roast squirrel do still exist and the general rule of homestead has always been "if you shoot it, you're eating it".